After Hurricane Ida, Communities in US Get help From Solar Installations

PosiGen deploys solar power to Hurricane Ida Victims in Houma, Louisiana

Hurricane Ida recovery volunteers credit the solar power stations with helping them bring their communities back to life. Tiffany Theriot runs the Cajun Commissary, which is an emergency distribution site set up on a tennis court in storm-ravaged Houma, Louisiana. “Having these solar power stations has truly transformed how we are able to help people,” Theriot says. “I’m truly at a loss for words. Because PosiGen and the Footprint Project are here providing us solar power, we can plug in refrigerators to feed volunteers. We now have fans to cool people down. We have electricity to charge cell phones so they can contact their loved ones. We don’t have to worry about running out of gas. We don’t have to hunt for ice. We have all the energy we need to serve the volunteers who are serving the people of this community, and it all comes right from the sun. This gift of solar power truly changed how we operate, and we are so grateful to PosiGen and Footprint Project.”

The 12 self-contained solar power stations include 30 solar panels that provide 11,400 watts of power, along with an inverter and dual battery pack that provides up to 27,000 watt-hours of electricity. PosiGen Solar has been working around the clock with the team from the Footprint Project to deploy these power stations across southeast Louisiana. They are being used by community volunteers to run refrigeration, ice makers, freezers, portable A/C’s, to set up cooling stations and charging stations.

Tom Neyhart, PosiGen CEO says “As soon as we ensured our employees were safe, we turned our attention to helping people in these hardest-hit areas. It’s frustrating to know the work we’re doing now to power neighborhoods through microgrids, and power storage could have been done pre-storm if our state had a more holistic approach to energy. PosiGen is now working to install 300 solar power batteries at homes in low-income neighborhoods so these families aren’t left in the dark again. Everyone deserves the right to clean, renewable energy.”

The Footprint Project has worked to bring clean energy to areas of climate disasters and humanitarian emergencies since 2017, but volunteers on the ground in Southeast Louisiana say this is their largest response operation to date.

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